German navy rescues 880 migrants at sea near Libya

Friday, May 29, 2015 - 00:48

German navy frigate rescues 880 migrants at sea, just north of the Libyan coast. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

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ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION).
The German frigate "Hessen" rescued 880 migrants from the waters off the coast of Libya on Friday.
The frigate is part of the enlarged Triton operation agreed by the European Union following the suspected deaths of some 800 migrants in a shipwreck in April.
The migrants, including 118 women and 27 children, were aboard six boats. Some were rescued while they were in the water struggling to stay afloat with their life vests.
The rescue was conducted around 30 nautical miles northwest of the Libyan city of Abu Kammash, not far off the Tunisian coast.
With Libya engulfed in strife, people smugglers are increasingly free to pack migrants onto unsafe boats. This is expected to push total migrant arrivals in Italy for 2015 to 200,000, an increase of 30,000 on last year, according to an Interior Ministry projection.

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